The Effect of Leadership on Organizational Culture: Analysis of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates

Introduction

The culture of an organization speaks of its personality. Culture comprises the organization's values, norms, assumptions and tangible signs or artifacts that speak of its members and their various types of behaviors. A distinctive culture provides an organization a motivating environment and builds cooperation or synergism as the basic requirement to breed success. Additionally, culture establishes standards for the entire system; hence it would be expected of an organization to manage a culture that keeps the organization competitive, likewise making employees happier and healthier all the time. Basically, there are three basic functions of organizational culture such as, it provides sense of identity for all members, it enhances commitment to the organization's mission and it clarifies and reinforces standards and behaviors.

Meanwhile, on the concept of ethics, it is a rational process founded on agreed-on principles; morals meanwhile are founded on the realm of religion. The choice to do the right thing is based on principle of what is agreed upon and while morals are always founded on the universal law or the commandments of God. Ethical choices are based on what you believe in as your duty and value and to whom do you owe this duty and what value does this duty adheres to. Ethics is not in the choice of what is right and wrong because it falls under morals but ethics starts when there is already that question of morality because it is the value of the individual and the society he serves that should prevail. Additionally, the concept of ethical leadership refers to leading the organization with a leader who chooses the right and avoids doing wrong that can destroy the image of an organization.

On the other hand, the idea of leadership styles refers to the techniques and strategies of an organizational on how he leads effectively his people to do act on certain decisions effectively and decisively. Two famous leadership styles are the transformational leadership and charismatic leadership. These two styles of leadership will be discussed in the proceeding sections of this paper.

Specifically, this paper will evaluate two famous business leaders by contrasting and comparing their respectives on organizational culture, ethical leadership and leadership styles and how these aspects impact their organizational behavior.

Discussion

Steve Jobs and Bill Gates need no further introduction when it comes to business world. Both have unique set of leadership skills and styles. Also, the two are very successful business owners that made their companies landed among the Fortune 500 companies in the world, all because of these two great leaders when it comes to their leadership styles.

Bill Gates and the Microsoft Culture

The Microsoft Culture that Bill Gates leads and manages is one where the culture of participation and empowerment prevail. Gates sees to it that his employees participate in decision making because this is his strategy to increase the engagement of his people towards their works in particular and to the entire organization in general. This great world business has the culture of empowered people because he motivated them to share their knowledge and let their ideas be transferred to others to help in the decision making process.

On ethical leadership of Gates

Ethical leadership is the standards by which businesses operate according to reference for business. They are best demonstrated through acts of fairness, compassion, integrity and responsibility. Bill Gates is very fair in dealing with his subordinates. He makes sure that everyone receives his salary and incentive package to which they are worth it. He is very compassionate to the pathetic plight of his people by raising their salary as the need arises to cover the rising cost of commodities especially when the US experiences economic crisis such as the increase inflation rate of dollars. Bill Gates sees to it that whatever he admonishes, he follows them and he always walks his talks. Finally, Gates is a very responsible leader by being there in the bottom pushing everyone to do accomplish their outputs effectively and efficiently while giving his full support to every problem encountered by his people especially during the tough times of Microsoft.

Bill Gates's Leadership Styles

Bill Gates leadership style is participative in nature. He strongly believes in the value of input coming from his employees, and the reason of the overall success Microsoft. He leads the company with full of enthusiasm and hard work attitude. He was able to make his company withstand with storm and still come up as industry leader. He delegates works to his subordinates and he harnesses the full potentials of his employees to come out the best of their skills, talents and knowledge.

Steve Jobs and the Culture of Apple Co

Apple co is a leader in innovation, designs and reliable connectivity. With Apple products, they are designed to respond to the real needs of the customers. As regards innovation, Apple leads the innovation strategy of their products so that they can always offer the newest features to improve and add more benefits and usefulness to their valuable customers. With the innovative Apple products, they are always updated with the newest trends in the market as regards product innovation. Perhaps, one of the key factors of Apple's enormous business success is Steve Jobs, its leader who is a most loved person in the industry. Steve is the inspiration of all marketers in the world on how he leads people. On one hand, Apple Inc core advantage is the margin that commands over its products. It keeps a good margin to invest R&D and brand building. Finally, Apple Inc has strong consumer focus, the reason that designs and innovations of products are based on customers' needs (Dudovskiv, 2018).

Ethical leadership of Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs believes that ethical leadership has good impact to the organization affecting positively the lives of the people like its employees, customers and stakeholders. Steve Jobs opined that ethical leadership attracts people to work in the organization because most people would like to work in an organization that pursues what is good for the organization and its people. An ethical leader is an effective leader that pursues what is best for his people, for the community and the environment.

Steve Jobs's leadership style

Steve Jobs is apparently embracing the autocratic style of leadership. He wants to take charge of everything and collects little input or none at all from his team members. Being a leader, he believes to be the main person in-charge of the decision-making and just act based on his own ideas without even using the solid evidence. However, this style of Jobs may seem harsh and odd, but it opens doors for Steve Jobs success. Another leadership trait of Jobs is his being innovative. He created the most successful company in the world in the technological industry. He is dedicated to innovation and creative designs that do not only benefit his company Apple but become benefits to all consumers in the world. He is a risk taker and probably the biggest risk taker in the whole world. He wants to learn first before others and grow what he learns if he thinks they are necessary for success. Jobs, unlike Gates though did not understand the benefit of working as a team and with co-employees. He is demanding to team members and more of a dictator that a true leader. In reality, his techniques are very difficult for the employees to follow but they are the tools for success for Apple products. He created a design mindset because he develops his own as he deemed see them best. Jobs has the wide awareness of the ability of his people especially their skills, which could not be seen from Gates. Finally, Jobs is a motivational speaker because he can attract people to listen to him for longer period and he developed a working culture of positive thinking and innovative design.

Conclusion

Contrasting Bill Gates and Steve Jobs on their leadership style, we can say that Bill Gates is not as creative as Jobs. Gates does not share his passion by developing and nurturing his ideas alone. Yet, through Gates trust and confidence with his men, Microsoft was able to produce the biggest technological breakthrough that we have today in the market. Meaning, Gates is a genius in his own way. Additionally, Gates has a unique set of skills. He is a visionary because he clearly visualizes dreams for his company and works it hard for the achievement of that dream and goal. In fact, it was Gates who envisioned that every household should have a computer and this is gradually happening.

In summary, Gates and Jobs' leadership styles belong to different spectrum. Bill Gates has the leader and follower relationship style while Steve Jobs has the leader style of dealing with people. While the two leadership styles maybe are contrasting but the two leaders have one thing in common and those are the passion and dedication to innovation and design, which are the requirements in the world of computing technology. Jobs in front of the board presents only one set of ideas but still he is a genius when it come design innovativeness of the products. Jobs uses the trial and error and learned from every mistake to perfect the product design. This made Apple the most successful company in personal computing and mobile technology. Both Gates and Jobs as compared with other CEOs from other companies, these two have the comprehensive understanding of what would happen next and hence, they are always prepared to face the challenges. This is another leadership skill that sets apart Gates and Jobs from other leaders in the business world. Most importantly, they can recognize the needs of their companies and they know as well how to execute to make their companies more productive and successful.